Enough Time – Shiloh’s Writing

I’ll be posting an official update on my the Doneness Project tomorrow sometime since I’m still working on it, but for now I figured I would share some poetry related to what I’m writing. Not properly edited, but I like the roughness of it.

ENOUGH TIME

by Shiloh Ohmes

We are girls with too many monsters and not enough time

Enough time to kill them

Enough time to see the sun

Enough time, just not enough

We make our home on dusty car seats between yesterday’s polaroids and tomorrows faded map

Cracks in the windshield throw broken rainbows on our legs

Fingers stained with nicotine and Dorito dust tap to the beat of static laced drums

People on the radio, they sing of loving forever like it’s not slow suicide by a bear trap crushing the ribs

They talk of freedom, which is somehow softer than a bare knuckle brawl, or sweeter than tequila burning it’s way back up, because grief is the mother of freedom and all other broken things

We are girls with too many scars and not enough time

Enough time to stitch them right

Enough time for black to fade yellow

Enough time, just not enough

We draw backroads and battle lines on grease spotted napkins, ink bleeding into lipstick bleeding into phone numbers scratched on gas station receipts

They fall to the floorboards, sifting down through the layers of dirt and broken promises and crumpled Coke straws that make up our life

The wind tangles our hair with snatching fingers, whispers the time into our ears with heartbeats counting down, counting down

We are girls with too many dreams that will never come to pass

Because we went left instead of right

Because the asphalt turned into dirt turned into something we should have never found

Because we keep going instead of turning back

Because raw skinned survival demands cramping bellies and unbent necks and hands steady with purposful rage that does not, will not, can not submit

We are girls with too many thorns and not enough time

Enough time to take root

Enough time to bloom in color

Enough time, just not enough

Cinnamon gum pops between wind-chapped lips

Toes with flaked paint tap to the beat of the static laced drums

We laugh too loud, swear too much, drive too fast, live too hard

Because we won’t last the year

Because there are monsters in the dark

Because maybe we’re monsters, too

Because what we have right here right now is all we’ve got

The people can keep their cotton candy love and imitation freedom, keep them in the shadow boxes high on pristine shelves

We are girls with too many monsters and not enough time for anything less than the hard, ugly truth that cuts and bruises and shakes the bones

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